Camelid Antibodies

RESEARCH FOCUS

​The occurrence of bona fide antibodies devoid of light chains in Camelidae was one of the major discoveries within our department. These so-called heavy-chain antibodies (HCAbs) bind antigens solely with one single variable domain, referred to as VHH. Methods were developed to clone the VHH repertoire of an immunized dromedary (or llama) in phage display vectors, and to select the antigen-specific VHHs from these “immune” VHH libraries.
In many research activities of both the Myeloid Cell Immunology group and the Immunoparasitology group, VHHs (also called Nanobodies or single-domain antibody fragments) are used and further developed as tools for in vitro and in vivo applications.